Has lurid fiction like the movie Iron Sky any basis in fact? Everyone knows that WW2 Germany developed rockets far in advance of the Allies, but some argue that in 1945 the Third Reich was on the verge of developing a space program!
The Reich Stuff? A Sanger Silverbird conquers space. (Image credit: illustration by Josha Hildwine via www.luft46.com)
Ever since Adolf Hitler’s ‘Thousand Year’ Third Reich was utterly defeated, this awful regime has held a horrid fascination in the popular imagination. One aspect that interests many is Nazi Germany’s frightening array of military hardware. Despite an astonishingly corrupt and incompetent procurement bureaucracy, the Nazis fielded some very technologically advanced weapons (and less often-mentioned, many disastrous flops too). Among the successes were the heavy Tiger tanks, assault rifles, IR nightsights, the excellent Focke Wulf fighter ‘planes, the Me262 jetfighter and the V-2 ballistic missile (of course the Allies had their own brilliant technological triumphs: such as ULTRA, centimetric radar, the B-29 and above all the atomic bomb, the things that actually did win the war) .
An A4 (alias V2) s prepared for launch. (Image credit: Missile Defense Agency)
In the past few years stories of other, more amazing schemes from the Third Reich have appeared, stories of intercontinental missiles and orbiting spaceplanes (all adorned with swastikas). These started on the internet (for example, until recently Wikipedia’s article on the Aggregate rocket family used to state that several Luftwaffe pilots made space flights in 1945 until saner editors prevailed) and since have spread to books and TV documentaries. Are there the slightest grains of truth in these tales of Nazis in space?
Of course, Germany was the first nation to field a ballistic missile in the sleek shape of Wernher von Braun’s V-2. The name V-2, for Vergeltungswaffe 2 (Vengeance Weapon 2), was an invention of Nazi propagandists, more correctly, this missile was designated A4, one of the A-series rockets developed by von Braun (1912-77) and his colleagues since the 1930s. The German army had begun sponsoring von Braun’s research even before Hitler came to power, seeing missile weapons as an alternative to the long-range artillery forbidden to post-WW1 Germany. Built by a workforce of slaves labouring in hideous underground factories managed by sadistic murdering thugs (as many as 20 000 people died building A4s, and about 7250 more people were killed by the missiles, never forget this), the A4 was a staggeringly futuristic rocket. Rising from its launch pad under 25 tonnes of thrust from its alcohol and liquid oxygen-fuelled engine, it could carry a 975 kg (2150 lb) warhead at supersonic speed up to 314 km (195 miles) from its launching site. First successfully launched in 1942, it was fired against Allied cities, including London, Antwerp and Paris from 1944. Sometime in 1944, an A4 reached an altitude of 189 km (117 miles) making it the first man-made object to reach space. This would have been a propaganda triumph for the Third Reich, but the Kármán line, the boundary 100 km (62 miles) above our heads where space officially begins was not yet defined at that time.
Dedicated followers of Fascism: von Braun (centre) always claimed to have been a designer of spaceships which those horrid Nazis turned into weapons. (Image credit: Bundesarchiv)
Yet impressive though it was, the A4 was not (except in Hitler’s dreams) a war-winning weapon, its range and destructiveness were adequate for a European war, but not for a global conflagration. Aware of this, von Braun and his team had investigated longer ranged A4 derivatives. One result was the A9, a winged A4, which was intended to glide up to 800km (497 miles) from its launch site, but von Braun was thinking on a yet more grandiose scale.
In some unlikely and nightmarish alternate timeline the A9/10 was the first space launcher (Image credit: Josha Hildwine via www.luft46.com)
The A10 design was started in 1936, and resembled a giant A4 with a unique 100 tonne thrust engine formed from six of the A4’s engines feeding a single exhaust. Originally the aim was to carry a 4 tonne warhead 500km (310 miles). By 1941 the A10 had evolved into the lower stage of an intercontinental missile. Mounted on top of the A10 would be an A9, launched from western France this combination was hoped to be capable of launching 1 tonne warheads at New York city. Just like today’s shuttle SRBs, the A10 was meant to descend under a parachute into the ocean for recovery and reuse. The combined A9/10 would have been comparable in size to the 1950s US Atlas missile, later used to launch Mercury project astronauts into orbit. This concept sounds impressive but it was a fantasy. The whole configuration of the A9/10 is primitive and would not have worked. No A10 component was ever built and the project was officially abandoned in 1943 (anything you may read to the contrary is a modern invention). Here is a short movie on this project, please note that virtually the entire narration is unfounded speculation.
The Germans planned a piloted craft based on this research. Among the engineering drawings of the A9 discovered after the war were a set showing the rocket modified with a pressurised cockpit and a tricycle undercarriage. Capable of a maximum speed of Mach 3.4 at an altitude of 20km, its performance would have been astonishing for the 1940s. The purpose of this vehicle is unclear; many sources claim that this was a suicide bomber, imagining a fanatical Nazi pilot steering his craft into the Empire State Building or the White House. Ignoring the infeasibility of this scenario, the craft had no space for a warhead and was meant to land on a runway for reuse, presumably it was for high speed research or possibly reconnaissance missions. Combined with an A10 booster, this manned craft could cross the Atlantic in 40 minutes, or fly above the Kármán line (assuming it all worked as planned, an unlikely prospect). This never happened and this vehicle was never built. No Nazi astronauts flew into space on it and no CGI images, however pretty, will ever make this true. Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space.
Artist’s concept of the A9 (Image credit: Josha Hildwine via www.luft46.com)
Further decrying the modern myths, the combined A9/10 vehicles were not meant to launch payloads into orbit. However von Braun did claim that during the war that he had designed a reusable orbital space vehicle to assemble and service a wheel-shaped space station. This seems to have been a lie aimed at his US Army captors perhaps to help sell his services to them. He called the spacecraft and its launch vehicle the A11/12 and they appear to have actually been designed when he was in detention in 1946. Again this project was never built and was far beyond 1940s technology, designed without later knowledge of high-speed aerodynamics and atmospheric heating, the craft as planned would have disintegrated in flight had it been launched.
The other great Nazi “space project” was Eugene Sänger’s Silbervogel (Silverbird) or “Antipodal Bomber”, a fully-fledged spaceplane. Sänger (1905-64) was a gifted engineer who had been investigating supersonic flight and rocket engines since the early 1930s. At this time he sketched plans for a rocket-powered supersonic passenger aircraft (note that contemporary airliners were mainly biplanes which cruised at 160 km/h or so). Offered a post by the Luftwaffe (the Nazi armed forces jealously guarded their pet projects from each other; von Braun was employed by the army and later the SS, he and Sanger were kept ignorant of each other’s work), Sänger remodeled this civilian vehicle into an extraordinary bomber.
The Silverbird (seen in model form) was an astonishingly audacious scheme for the 1930s (Image credit: Allen B. Ury/www.fantasticplastic.com)
A flattened metal cigar 28m long with stubby wings, a Silverbird would have begun its mission pushed along a 3 km (2 mile) long monorail track somewhere in Germany by a large rocket-powered sled. Once airborne, the craft’s pilot would ignite its large rocket motor accelerating it to ten times the speed of sound. Gliding over the Atlantic, the Silverbird would drop up to eight tonnes of bombs (claims that it was meant to carry a nuclear device are once again recent inventions) on targets in the eastern US, before traversing the whole American continent. As it flew it would make a series of hops, soaring out of the atmosphere, then diving back. Each time it skipped into space it would lose velocity and radiate the heat generated by its hypersonic flight, avoiding the need for a heatshield. Finally it would land on a runway somewhere in the Pacific (presumably on some Japanese-occupied island) where a second track would launch it back to the Fatherland.
Here is more breathless and unrealistic speculation.
It is an amazing scheme but completely unworkable with WW2-era technology and the Luftwaffe agreed, closing the project down in 1942 and putting Sänger to work on more conventional projects. Even today we would have difficultly building such a vehicle, only the Space Shuttle has higher performance. In fact the Silverbird’s predicted performance was based on a completely unrealistic empty weight of 10 tonnes plus 90 tonnes of propellent. By contemporary standards this empty weight seems a ludicrous underestimate, using WW2 era technology building so lightweight a vehicle would have been impossible.. The planned craft contained many elegant technical solutions, the self-cooling engine for example, but despite all the modern computer-generated movies and images of the Silverbird in flight, it would never have worked as designed. The Silverbird would have never attained its fantastic speed and range. Even if it had succeeded in reaching the proposed speed and altitude, the proposed ‘hopping’ flight path to shed heat was hopelessly inefficient; at high speed a Silverbird would catastrophically turn itself into a shower of aluminium meteors. Although Sänger tested wind tunnel models of this project, it never came anywhere near construction. Some websites feature indistinct photographs claimed to be of a partly assembled Silverbird but these are not correct.
I should also mention, but only briefly as they are nonsense, the wilder still ideas that the Teutonic supermen were planning an orbiting battle station (das Todesstern?) to focus intense beams of sunlight onto terrestrial targets or even invented anti-gravity devices and installed them in a fleet of flying saucers. Apart from the sheer foolishness of this latter theory, some of its promoters are deeply sinister apologists for Hitler’s regime who deserve only to be ignored. Parodying this nonsense seems to the aim of the Iron Sky movie.
In reality, Nazi Germany never had a space program in the sense of a plan to explore and exploit Earth orbit and beyond. I would argue that it is a pity that it didn’t. The world today might even be a better place if Hitler had taken a personal interest in these proposals. An ignoramus on technical matters, the Führer often overruled his less fantasy-prone advisors, deciding to throw resources at projects that appealed to him, no matter how ludicrous such as the impressive-looking, hugely expensive yet militarily pointless 188 tonne Maus tank and Dora superguns. As a result millions of Reichmarks were squandered and Allied victory crept a little nearer. According to historian Steven J Zaloga, the A4 missile project “achieved nothing of significant military value” but cost Germany the equivalent of $2 billion (1945 values, and roughly the same as the Allies spent on the Manhattan Project). That was $2 billion not spent on the tens of thousands of tanks or fighter planes which could have slowed the Allies’ advances. Just think, if Germany in 1940 had started to seriously develop von Braun and Sanger’s creations, how much more money would have been wasted? The war might have ended in Allied victory years earlier, millions of innocent lives could have been spared and A9 and Silverbird prototypes would be popular exhibits at the Smithsonian and Imperial War Museums.
Further reading
Lowther, Scott, “Raumwaffe 1946”, Aerospace Projects Review, September-October 2003, p3-57
Parsons, Zack, My tank is fight: deranged inventions of WWII, Citadel Press, New York, 2006
Rose, Bill, Secret Projects: Military Space Technology, Midland Counties Publications, Hersham, 2008
Zaloga, Steven, J, V-2 ballistic missile 1942-52, Osprey, Oxford, 2003
Despite the popularity of Nazi victory tales in alternate history fiction, semi-realistic depictions of German rocketry are rare. A Silverbird attack on the US is thwarted in Allen Steele’s short alternate history tale Goddard’s People (1991). The 1965 movie Operation Crossbow is an entertaining but historically dubious yarn about the Allied response to the development of the V-weapons; at the film’s climax a giant intercontinental rocket is being prepared for launch from an underground silo but it is destroyed by RAF bombers. Vengeance 10 (1982) by Joe Poyer goes a step beyond this, being both an epic “Boys Own” adventure of a British agent and a parallel story of German preparations for a lunar mission in WW2 (I’m not sure it this is an ‘Alternate History’ or a ‘Secret History’), it is an interesting read but whitewashes von Braun’s character to a remarkable extent.
(Article by Colin Johnston, Science Communicator)
A very interesting article Colin. Of course the US Space Programme was born out of the work of the Nazis and the Americans actually built a 2-stage version of the “V-2″ called “Bumper” launched in 1950, though the second stage was a smaller rocket on top of the original design, not a bigger one underneath it which might have made more sense.
Paul.
Hi Paul, I’m sort of half in agreement with you. Von Braun is a really important figure in the early history of the US space program, but I’d argue that he was more important as a organiser and propagandist than an engineer. He wasn’t essential to actually building spacecraft and rockets as both his admirers and detractors would have us believe. If the US had never taken him and his colleagues into custody (say if the RAF had been luckier when they bombed Peenemunde), I’m pretty sure that the USA would have began launching satellites and spacemen on a similar schedule as they did historically.
I think Bumper was the best that could be done at the time, the USSR did some pretty similar stuff with their R-1 and 2, both A4 knock-offs.
Thanks for the kind words!
Actually, no. Everybody seems to miss the fact that America developed the liquid rockets. Namely Robert Goddard was the start of all viable space programs. In fact, the NAZIs used his work to get to where they were.
An interesting article despite the politically correct invective.According to the best boigrahies of Adolf Hitler and diaries published by his own staff.Army Adjuctnet Gerhard Engel,and his Luftwaffe counterpart Von Below, Adolf Hitler was greatly interested in technology,and belived in innovation and trying new things.Nor did he personally endorse the MAUS Super Tank,or huge rail guns.The Maus was an experiment conducted by Dr.Porsche,and the rail guns a request of the very traditional artillery department.Germany and her Allies were fighting with limited resources, the most powerful Empires on earth in a bid to make Germany a world superpower.It is not being a so-called’evil’YAWN,Nazi apologist in saying so.The best books on the German atomic programme is THE VIRUS HOUSE by David Irving.The Mare’s Nest by Irving as well.(He actually interviewed the scientists, and found the records-no hearsay or politicaly correct self rightious propaganda)If the victories allies,which included Stalin’s Soviet Union,(Von Ardenne went East) were so ahead.Why were they so eager to employ German Scientists,and capture prototypes,Operation Paperclip, after the Third Reich’s defeat?
Hi, thanks for your comments. Thanks for the compliment, I do love pointing out much the Nazis sucked!
I totally agree that Hitler was very interested in technology (far more so than any other WW2 leader) but he was also a doofus who surrounded himself with idiots. He and his entourage meddled in research and procurement planning to a ridiculous extent leading inevitably to a cyanide capsule for tea in 1945. Result!
I don’t believe building the Maus was Porsche’s personal project; every reference I have read says Porsche lobbied Hitler to be allowed to develop the Maus as the Germany army was very lukewarm about the idea. Hitler loved it and as a result the Russian army got a really cool exhibit for their tank museum.
The superguns were indeed developed to a German army requirement (to bombard Paris in a repeat of WW1 I believe) but Hitler did push their actual construction. Was it worth for the German war effort? No.
I have read both the Irving books (they’re both about 50 years old, I’d be interested to see what more recent works with less emotional investment in their subjects would say) but I don’t really see your point. And yes, I do agree that Irving is a nasty old bore (I assume that is what you are trying to say).
I find it completely understandable that the victorious allies wanted to exploit the talentsof German technicians, I’m not saying that the Nazi engineers were incompetent, not at all, it was their leaders who were drooling imbeciles!
Great article and spot-on! I have done a lot of research on the German ‘Space Program’ and although my family originated in Germany and I am biased when it comes to ‘thinking’ the Germans are super smart LOL! Von Braun was an avid admirer of the American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard and wanted (before WW2) to work with him but Goddard was a loner and was always afraid of someone stealing his ideas but he did (Von Braun) learn enough to start work on the German rocket program long before the Nazis took power. It’s a shame Goddard (in my opinion) didn’t throw in with Von Braun as I believe Von Braun wanted to stay in the USA and work on rockets away from the politics that was sweeping Europe.
After the war when we ‘acquired’ Von Braun and his team, other than projects like ‘operation bumper’ etc. our rocket program was terrible! We couldn’t seem to get a rocket off the pad let alone get into space with any of our new projects!
It was good old American ingenuity along with what the Germans had learned that eventually got us ahead of the ‘Space Race’ also, to Von Braun’s credit he did develop the Saturn V , but all the rest of the hardware (lunar lander, etc.) was a team effort from the collective minds of scientists here in the USA.
Best regards,
Phil
Sr Engineer
A nice straightforward article with an excellent finale. A point well made.
I am one of those drawn into fascination with these matters but I am also concerned as to why it is that such popular ruminations of the “what if” variety fixate uniquely upon the Third Reich. Is it that “The Devil has the best tunes” or the fact that the Third Reich ended absolutely, thereby making greater leeway for fantasy. Like a Rock star dying young, its destruction at the hands of the Allies saved it from the failures that it was undoubtedly destined to exhibit otherwise. I for one take the supposed superiority of German engineering with a few buckets of salt. They certainly cant keep the trains running reliably in Berlin.
In any case, I think these ruminations are about to be boosted by Ridley Scott’s movie version of Philip Dick’s “The Man in The High Castle” (if it is produced). Set in a world where Germany won WW2, the novel starts with the protagonist crossing the USA in a German rocket plane. I cannot help visualising the title sequence showing a Sanger styled sub-orbital airliner skimming through the edge of space (set to the opening of Pink Floyds “Wish You Were Here”) and baring a flash of Swastika on a tail-fin before it descends into the atmosphere (cue interior cabin scene ironically harking back to “2001 A Space Odyssey”, going down instead of going up, German metallic Gothik-Dekor instead of the white nylon techno-interior of Kubrick’s Space Clipper).
All this aside there is another way of regarding the German rocket program entirely. Effectively, it was Von Braun’s puppy: all he was interested in was spaceflight and going to the moon. NAZIsm, WW2, slave labour and everything else were in his mind merely the opportunities he needed to edge his dreams nearer to reality. Though the Wehrmacht thought they were getting a weapon ( a “self propelled bomb”) they were in fact footing the bill for Von Braun’s one man space programme. Moreover, the A4 was utterly critical in making the prospect of large rockets and spaceflight credible. It seems natural now but totally incredible then. R.V.Jones in “Most Secret War” recounts how British scientists refused to believe that what they were shown in aerial photos was a rocket. Too big to be a rocket they said. It must be a 46ft long torpedo. This was the mindset of the time, when one exalted physicist “proved” by arithmetical argument that space-flight was physically impossible.
My view is that without Von Braun (single minded, self serving and obsessively uncaring about the fate of those he trod down on his climb to realising a dream) and without his weapon (phallic pun intended) the USSR and USA would have continued to develop bombers instead of missiles and there would never have been a space programme. Even today.
Viewed from that perspective, it could be said that the Third Reich did indeed conquer space!